The Emu SP1200 was, without a doubt, a milestone in hip hop production (and sampling in general).  Working around its 10 second sample time forced producers to be creative, and efficient.  Out of these techniques to gain more time, a new sound emerged.  By speeding a sample up (for example, playing a 33.3rpm record at 45rpm) and then pitching it back down inside the SP1200, the sampling time could almost be doubled, however if the change was too dramatic, the machine added a unique distortion to the result.  It’s hard to describe, almost like a slightly distorted ring modulation.

That was 20 years ago.  Now, the gritty side-effect created by the SP1200 is a trademark, and recognizable to lots of producers.   Sampling drums and other short sounds into the SP1200 is pretty simple.  On the other hand, applying that grit to samples longer than 15-20 seconds can be a complicated process… but worth the time and effort.  With the steps outlined in this article, you will see how to perfectly apply this SP1200 grit to a sample of any length and then stitch it back together using Awave Studio.

1. grab any sample, and convert to mono/44.1khz/16bit wav
2. chop wav file into 3.9 second long segments
3. convert each segment to 26,040hz/12bit wav
4. stretch/resample time to 63% (use method that doesn’t preserve pitch or length)
5. force-sample 2.5 seconds of silence into A1, B1, C1 and D1
6. set sp1200 to receive midi dump
7. using awave, send sample #1 over with SDS ID 0, sample #2 with SDS ID 1, etc. the SDS ID is always 1 less than the sample number
8. then, the sounds should actually be assigned to A1, A2, A3, A4
9. set the mix all the way up, and set the tune all the way down for A1, A2, A3, A4
10. record the tuned samples back into computer, and patch them back together
11. done, final result will be at the (damn near) same pitch, only with maximum sp1200 grit

This list of steps is for getting the most possible grit sound out of the SP1200.  To get less distortion on your samples, change the resample time in step 4, and adjust the tune on the SP1200 in step 9. The next step is finding out a way to automate this process…

Interesting note: The SP1200s were produced from roughly 1987-1999, retailing for $2,495 new right before they stopped production, due to “running out of  chips.”  How does a company just run out of IC chips for one of their flagship products?  Well, that’s an interesting story.  The real magic behind the sound of the SP1200 most likely revolved around its SSM Analog Synthesizer Chip – specifically the SSM2044.  You can read more about the SSM2044 at the Emulator Archive:

E-mu Systems finally stopped using the SSM designs when supplies of the SSM2044 ran out in the late 90′s, and they had to replicate the chip with discrete logic in the final run of SP1200′s… Some chips turn up as old synthesizers are broken for spares. The original chip designs are apparently lost, although it may be possible to reverse engineer them as they use a standard transistor base.

No kidding.  And unfortunately, due to this mysterious “missing” SSM2044 filter chip design, the true SP1200 grit has never been reproduced in any modern day equipment, nor has it been translated into a digital RTAS/VST plugin.

Another note:  I will be updating this soon with pictures, audio and perhaps even a video to illustrate the entire process.  Decided to post this as-is for now, since it’s been written for over a year and just never got around to posting it.

As a follow up to my previous article, 8 Tips for Getting Your Music Heard (For Free),I decided to up the ante a bit, and see what was possible with a budget of  $150.  The test album for this experiment is my own instrumental collection of beats, “Instrumentally Sound” by the Sound Scientists.  This series of articles will also serve as reviews on CD Baby, GrooveShark, SoundOut, Jango Artist Airplay and CreateSpace.  At the end of the process I am hoping to get my music into all of the major online stores (iTunes, Amazon MP3, Rhapsody) and into regular rotation (or as close to it as possible) on various online radio stations (Pandora, Grooveshark, Jango, etc.).  It’s always great to get feedback too, so the more information I can get about my listeners, the better.

I’m writing these reviews from the perspective of an artist trying to spread their music through as many avenues as possible.  The reviews won’t be based on profits, but on how useful each services proves to be, how easy they are to use, and anything else that impresses or disappoints me.  Seeing how the album is already available online for free in multiple places, it would be a tainted experiment to judge anything based on sales.  Plus, this is not so much about how to improve sales, but how to improve the amount of people that actually hear your album.

The budget I decided on originally was $100, but in order to review more services, I upped that to $160.  There is still plenty you can do for under $100 in order to gain a little more exposure.  The other requirement I have for this series, is that all of the processes must be digital, and all done online.  I do not want to bother with manufacturing, mailing, inventory or any of the overhead that goes along with physical CDs.  Unfortunately, some services (like Pandora) require a physical retail album (complete with UPC) – however there are ways to get around that too, without spending any money out of pocket.

First things first – any respectable artist with an album these days, has that album for sale in iTunes and Amazon MP3 (among other places).  Even if you aren’t planning on making a living off digital album royalties, it’s great to refer people to your work in the same places they get all of their other music.  For this, CD Baby seems to fit the bill perfectly.  The next post in this series will cover the entire process of submitting your music to CD Baby, which includes digital distribution via iTunes, Amazon MP3, eMusic, Rhapsody, Napster, Spotify, Verizon V-Cast, Nokia, Zune, and lots of other services that I hadn’t even heard of.

What’s better than making your own music? Making your own music, on instruments you also made yourself!

Randy Sarafan posted a tutorial on how to make a stereo microphone from scratch over at instructables.com, along with an easy step-by-step guide and pictures! Found via the Make Blog.

It has come time for me to update my home recording studio to continue recording my own brand of intergalactic low-fi, disco, funk, folk rock. Rather than spend big bucks on a stereo mic setup that won’t offer me the low quality sound that I am accustomed to, I have decided to build my own for next to nothing almost entirely out of found parts. Now I can get awesome panning effects that can easily be mimicked in software, but never truly replicated.

I love finding new ways to manipulate sound.  Whether it’s modifying cheap toys into instruments, new music-tech toys, or in this case, new software.  A few weeks ago, I came across a video on a new program called PhotoSounder, which allows you to edit your audio files in an image editor, like Photoshop or GIMP (or anything else you use for editing graphics).  This opens up a whole new world of possibilities in manipulating sound.  Check out an example of PhotoSounder in action with this video about instrument isolation (full tutorial after the break):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUZeE5vMZTI

Here is a complete tutorial on how this effect was achieved: Instrument Isolation Tutorial

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoFlHviTkl8

Best of all, you can try PhotoSounder out for yourself, with the demo version available here.

Sample Chopping in Cool Edit Pro 2.0 or Higher Part 1:
Chopping up Samples in Cep for use in Samplers.

(All Steps Are Executed in SINGLE WAvE FORM EDITING VIEW)

So you got a sweet sample you recorded in to CEP and now you want to Disect the sample so you can utilize it’s most sufficent parts, how are you going to achieve this? There is a methods I came upon that I found to be the fastest and easiest when it comes to chopping samples in CEP. This method will take a selection you’ve chosen. such as a Bass Drum, and save it to its own file as your choice of format for later use. The First Method is by far the easiest and fastest, plus it’s really easy to organize, in my opinion.

In order to work faster, we are first going to setup a Shortcut Key for the Function “SAVE SELECTION”. So GOTO OPTIONS/SHORTCUTS(KEYBOARD and MIDI TRIGGERS).
In the new pop up menu, Scroll Down till you come to the commands that start with the letter “F”. Now Look for the command name labeled “FILE SAVE SELECTION”. Click on the command name labled “FILE SAVE SELECTION” and insert a KEY (e.g.: “Z”) in the box labeled “PRESS NEW SHORTCUT KEY”. Now you may click “OK” But Remember you can not have conflicting keys.

OK… That Was the “Hard Part”.

Now all you got to do is Hightlight the Selection you want to save as a file and then hit the shortcut key for “SAVE SELECTION” and then CEP takes you through the normal process when saving, Name your file and save to the format you prefer. Easy and Fast!

NOTE: THE SAVE SELECTION FUNCTION ONLY BECOMES AVAILABLE WHEN A SEGMENT IS HIGHLIGHTED.

For those of you who dont know, Cool Edit 2.0 or higher ( Now known as Adobe Audition ) can be set up into a Fast and Bangin Beat Machine!

The Concept is Simple. If you can set the Time Ruler to Display Bars and Beats, Have the ruler then corespond with the Session Tempo, and then have Samples Snap to the Ruler..you Got a breeding ground for Bangin Beats.

(Note: All Steps Are Done in multi-Track View)

First “Right Click” on the Ruler and set the time value to “Bars And Beats”.

Now set your BPM by going to VIEW and CHECk ENABLE “Show Session Properties”.

Next Goto EDIT on the Top Menu Bar and Scroll Down to “Snapping” and enable Snap to Ruler (coarse).

Now bring in your Individual Drum Samples and start aligning them to the ruler, they should” “snap to the beats and bars). If you want to make copys of the Bass Drum or Snare ect, hold down the “Shift Key” when dragging a Wave Block. If you want 16 notes or other Quantize Values zoom in and out, the Ruler Will Show Diffrent Quatizing Values. Once you got your first loop, 1 bar ect, Select All” and Hold Down the “Shift Key” and drag them to the next bar 2:1:0 eCT,continue this for as long as you want and make changes and additions. You can also throw in “Perfect” Looped Melodies and snap the to your ruler.If the dont match make sure the block has “Enabled Looping”.

!Important!
If you notice that your Beat does not change with the Sesson tempo when its changed, that is becuase the Samples DO NOT Have “Enabled Looping”. In Order To Have You Beat Anchor and Change to Session Tempo Changes, Looping must be enabled on each sample, Regardless if there Single shot samples.
Its is important to Enable Looping as soon as you bring in the first sample of its type into the multitrack. This way, The Looping Function Gets copied when making copies of That wave block. To Enable Looping: “Right CLick” on the Sample And Scroll To “Loop Properties”. A New “Pop-Up menu” Appears. Check Enable the Box With the Words “Enable Looping” Beside it. Now For Single Shot Samples, Stop Here And Hit “OK”. For “Perfect” Loop Samples There is a Looping Function in the “Looping Box”That lets you enter the Number of beats in the loop. Enter the appropriate number of beats and ignore the Box with “BPM” on the right hand side. On the Same Pop-Up Menu, Chose The “Tempo Matching” Method, Such as Time Stretch or Beat Slice. Now hit “Ok” and Do the same For Other Samples Brought in to the Multi-Track For the First Time. If all done Correctly, your beat will respond to any tempo changes you make in Session Properties.

This Tutorial will show you how to import a MIDI file into Sonar 4, route the tracks to VST instruments, add audio effects, automation and custom fades. This technique applies to older versions of Sonar, Cakewalk and just about any other software.

upon Sonar 4, unless you have a MIDI device connected to your computer already, you will get this message. Don’t worry, because we are routing the MIDI internally. You would use this window if you wanted to play the MIDI back through an external device like a keyboard or a rackmount synth module.

Here we will just create a new project.

There are lots of presets for certain types of projects, but for now we’ll pick Normal.

This is the MIDI file I decided to use. It’s from an old NES game, and I found it on a public webpage. Just right click the link and select Save Link As (or Save Target As)

after saving the file, go back to Sonar and Import the MIDI you just saved (or a MIDI you already have somewhere).

After importing, this is what we have. For this MIDI File there are 4 tracks with MIDI notes. The first two are the same melody, only one is a little later than the other for a reverb effect. We are going to put in our own reverb to the audio output, so I will delete the echo track. Both bass tracks are the same, so I will delete one of those. That leaves us with 2 tracks.

Now we have MIDI notes, but if you hit play you won’t hear anything. We need to send these notes somewhere. Insert a DXi Synth from the file menu. From there you may select VST instruments installed on your computer.

Make your options like they are above.

now on the melody (first) MIDI track, click on the output option, and select the VSTi / DXi you just added. In this case its Revitar 1.2.1 (I added Dream Station DXi that comes with Sonar for the Bass Track)

Now, you can play the project and listen to how the melody will sound. Go through all the presets, and edit your own sounds if you want. I mentioned we would be adding our own reverb, so for this example I will use the Waves RVerb plugin. (You add an audio effect by selecting the DXi channel, and right clicking where it says “FX: None”)

The reverb I selected is a little heavy, and I want to add some life to it so I will add an envelope to the effect. Right click where the star is pictured, select Envelopes, then at the bottom, click on the effect you are using.

Here are the dynamic settings for this particular plugin. I am only going to edit the Wet-Dry ratio, so I can add and remove the amount of reverb that goes to the final mix.

To add a node, just right click anywhere on the envelope line, and select “Add Node”

After adding all the nodes, and setting the different points, you will have very straight and harsh lines. To smooth the lines (and therefore smoothing the effect) right click on a line segment and select the type of Curve you want.

If you hover the mouse pointer over any node, it will tell you the exact settings if that spot.

The track still needs drums. To make this easy, and to introduce another great feature of Sonar, lets add a drumloop in .wav format. First insert a new audio track to put the loop in.

Then Import the Audio

Once the .wav file shows up, right click on it and select “Groove-Clip Looping.” Afterwords your .wav file should have rounded edges.

Just click and drag the right edge of the file to loop the audio. It’s easy, and works just like Sony Acid Pro.

To fade audio, hover the mouse over the TOP CORNER of either left or right side of all the loops. The mouse pointer will turn into a triangle. Then just click and drag to edit the fade.

To adjust the fade to come in slow or fast, right click the end point of the fade (when the mouse pointer is a triangle)

We are almost done… for each of the DXi instruments you added, make sure you set the Outputs to “Master

Now just export the track as a .wav or .mp3

you will see a progress bar at the bottom of the screen as the track renders.

That’s It!

Ok I have seen a lot of issues with making banging drums. I guess a lot of people on this board want there drums to punch. I’m going show a few tricks that I know to get drums to bang. I’m not going to use records. I’m going to do this with drums off the net, but they key to these is that they have no processing. I’m also using Reason 3.0 for this, were going to explore a few secrets Reason has floating around in it to get the best out of your drums. First let’s get some drums.

http://breakbeatworldwide.com

We’re going to download the tekbrakes.

This will get you a lot of breaks that have been collected. The one that I have decided to use is the synthetic substitution break. Ok get the break and load it into a wav editor or some sort of chopper I’m going to use Recycle to chop the break up into separate chops so I can use the elements that I want.

Ok you see that I have the chops and I’m just going to save it as a normal Rex file. Next we are going to open up reason and create a combinatory. If you don’t have the new version of reason you don’t have to have a combinatory your just going to have to save the routing when you finish and use this as your starting rack for drums.

Build you a combinator and the 1^st thing you want to make inside is a new mixer and a redurm

After you have that made go and chose a kick, snare and hat from the break we just chopped and place them in channel 1, 2, 3. Next we are going to layer them with some drums from the factory sound bank. In 4 I placed an 808 sounding kick, and I just picked a snare and hat to place is 5 and 6. Pick something that compliments the break that we just chopped. Now turn the rack around for some back panel wiring.

We are going to place the gate out of 1 and go to the gate in of 4. Gate out of 2 into the gate in of 5, and repeat the process for 3 and 6. What this does is when you hit the 1^st kick the 2^nd one goes off at the same time, so you hit both drums at once. It should look like this. I also forgot to say disconnect the outs of redrum into the mixer we are going to use a separate out for each channel.

Now that the drums are layer we want to filter the 4, 5, 6 so only the low shows up. If you hit the keys at this point you won’t hear anything because we still haven’t had the outs go anywhere yet, but 1^st we are going to make 3EQ’s for 1,2,3. Make 3 Eq’s and unplug them. (You should turn off the automatic routing so you don’t have keeps disconnecting cables. Label the 3 Eq’s kick snare and hat so you don’t get them confused they should look like this with the wiring.
Now we want to make a filter for the other 3 drums just to get the low, but to do that we want to combine all 3 drums to go into one filter we could take this into further processing, but I’m trying to keep this as easy as possible. Make a spider auto merger and splitter. And take outs 4, 5, 6 and plug them into there. Then make a Filter and plug the outs of the spider into the in’s of the filter, the last thing for this is the plug the Filter into the mixer on channel 2. This this part is now done and should look similar to this.

The last thing we have to do is combine the outs of the 3 Eq’s into 1 channel and send them to a scream 4 module for some warmth and that should be it. So just like with the out of 4, 5, and 6 of redrum we are going to plug outs 1, 2, 3 into a spider and create a scream 4 module. Confiq should look like thisIt looks kind of complex but basically its just the outs of the EQ’s going into the in’s of the spider and the out of the spider going into the ins of the scream module and the outs of the scream module going into the in of the mixer on channel 1. This is it. Now hit a note you should her some drums. Now the hard part is done save it as your basic drum patch for your combinatory so you can always come back. Now when I make my tracks I usually don’t start with any EQ or effects so I bypass all of it. Your tracks should band with the drums before you add EQ, You just want the EQ for enhancement. The 1^st thing I want to mess with is the filtered drums 1^st. What I do is turn down 1, 2, and 3 and then play with the filter and get it to mix with the other drums and eventually bring the levels back up. Next I turn on the scream module and turn it to tape or tube and play with the levels until I get something that I like. These changes for all drums. If you can’t make something some of the Warm Saturation presets are good, just use on of those and tweak it to your liking and save the setting. Now there are plenty of settings for EQ’s but I used the ones posted on this board already and I had to tweak them a little but I got a good sound. I’ll post them below.

Taken from Mecury Waters.

EQ

More than likely you’re going to need to process the sound of your drums about now. For your snares you’re going to want to boost your midrange and slightly in the low end. Boosting in the 300Hz to 500Hz range will give your snare more of a bottom and backbone. Boosting between 800Hz and 1khz will give it more of a pop effect to it. And boosting between 2khz and 4khz will give it more of a clap or smack effect. The rules for EQ on snares pretty much apply the same to hi-hats. As for bass kicks you’re going to want to boost below 1khz for fatness or above to give a knock effect to the kick. You also my have too much tape hiss or vinyl noise so you may want to cut the frequency between 7khz to 10khz or higher depending on what noise you may want to remove. Also as a side note you may not have enough flexibility with your EQ to do all this at one time. So just remember you can always record or output a half processed sound to another medium and reload it back into the machine or software you use to complete your processing.

You may be shocked to realize that even with all the copyright protection going on with streaming audio and all these crazy formats that try to keep anyone from making copies… can be bypassed very easily. This will show you how to record anything… audio from a DVD, streaming MP3s from the internet, anything that you can hear on your computer can be recorded.. but even better, it can be recorded digitally.  This article is based on a Soundblaster or equivalent sound card.

This is better than actually recording from a DVD player, or even extracting audio from a DVD, since that usually takes a while to do, and it requires a decent amount of space and RAM.

So let’s get to it:

First of all, open up control panel, and select “Sounds and Audio Devices”

When the window opens, select the audio tab.

Under “Sound Recording” click the Volume button.

If you don’t see an option listed called “What you hear” or “Stereo Mix” then select Properties from the Options menu.

Select the “What U Hear” or “Stereo Mix” entry for recording, and then click OK.

Now you should have “What U Hear” or “Stereo Mix” as an option (What U Hear is Soundblaster specific), so select it.

With that selected, it will literally record anything that is played through your speakers. Just open up your sound recording software of choice (Soundforge, Audition / Cool Edit, Cubase, Sonar, whatever).

This should help lots of you out that have been struggling with recording audio from DVD… instead of messing with surround sound / AC3 files, you can record everything right to a .WAV file… same with streaming radio stations, mp3s, like I said, anything.

Enjoy!

Know your waveforms. The first step to audio editing on a computer, is to know what the hell you are looking at. Unlike hardware that forces you to listen to the audio, with a waveform in front of you, it’s easy to chop up samples, or see mistakes (like tracks that need compression).

	when you open up an audio file with your software, it will look something like this. This particular sound is a recording of drums. You can actually tell where the different hits are without listening to the audio. This is one of the many advantages of using a computer.
	after selecting just one hit of that drum recording, you can zoom in and see a little more detail. If you look close enough, the hit is actually a jagged line going above and below the thin blue line (which represents silence) in the very middle.
	Nothing recorded in nature is perfect (like this drum), so this is what an “organic” sample looks like. Zoom in close enough and you can see a full “cycle” of the soundwave.. that means it goes above the line, then under it.. each starting and ending in the same place
	there are actual terms for the line going above (higher air pressure) or below (lower air pressure) the line (normal air pressure). when the air pressure is high, that’s the compression. when it’s low, thats the rarefaction. pretty simple.
	this is a different way to look at a waveform. the black represents the air pressure. imagine looking straight down at a bouncing ball. when it gets close to your face, thats compression, when it hits the ground, thats the rarefaction.